, and 2020 - 2021

Short thoughts for every day from the beginning of Advent to the Epiphany

Introduction The season of Advent begins in the darkened days of late November, several weeks before Christmas. Advent is part of the Christian Year, a season of sustained focus on particular aspects of spiritual formation. It is a season that points beyond itself—to Christmas and the joy it promises. Advent can seem a little strange to those unfamiliar with its traditions, themes, and prayers. Is it merely a historical exercise to pray the prayers of ancient Israel as they longed for the birth of their Saviour? has already come, hasn’t he? Most of us like Christmas; after all, it’s kind of like an extended party for Jesus where we get the presents. But why spend weeks “anticipating” the birth of someone who’s already been born? The answer to this question draws us into the central purpose of Advent and the kind of spiritual formation we undergo when we celebrate it. At the core of Advent’s purpose is the discipline of patient, watchful anticipation. In the season of Advent, we train ourselves for watching and waiting. Most of us these days are pretty lousy at waiting. We live in a world whose entire modern economy is based on shrinking the space between feeling a desire and satisfying it. We expect our food to come quickly, the weekends can’t get here fast enough, we binge watch entire seasons of TV shows in a few nights, and even a few seconds of delay can cause us to abandon a web search in disgust. We want what we want and we want it now!

Even when our desires are good and holy, we are impatient for their satisfaction. We look around at our world and can clearly see its brokenness. Whether we look inside ourselves, at the lives of our family, friends, and neighbors, or at what’s happening in the wider world, we see the truth of Paul’s words: “the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.” (Romans 8) The world is not right. This world is not as it should be. God himself has told us that this is so, and very long ago he began working to do something about it. He has been at work, and is still at work—but that work is not yet finished. There is nothing we can do to speed it along, it will come in the time and measure chosen by God. We wait. Waiting may seem like doing nothing, but a moment’s reflection reveals that waiting is actually hard work. We groan, aching for what we need to finally come to pass. And waiting for God to finish his work is a little like pregnancy: there is preparation to do, but most of the work doesn’t come from us; we must simply wait, and the expectation and eager need make the waiting feel like a kind of work, an active, watchful , restrained patience. This waiting is fruitful. It enlarges our capacity to receive and enter the joy of Christmas. It right-sizes our perspective on our own efforts toward sanctification as we walk with God and submit to his rule. It widens our ability to experience joy even while we patiently endure trials, knowing that the day is surely coming when we will pass beyond the trial. It opens our eyes to see God’s promises fulfilled in ways we might miss were it not for a new alertness borne of the Holy Spirit, borne of waiting. This is the season of Advent. This season, will you watch and wait with us for the glory of God to be revealed? Sunday 29th November The season of Advent means there is something on the horizon Advent 1 the likes of which we have never seen before. So stay. Sit. Linger. Tarry. Ponder. Wait. Behold. Wonder. There will be time enough for running. For rushing. For pushing. For now, stay. Wait. Something is on the horizon. (Jan Richardson)

The Church set aside this four week pre-Christmas season as a time of spiritual preparation for Christ’s coming. It is a time of quiet anticipation. If Christ is going to come again into our hearts, there must be repentance. Without repentance, our hearts will be so full of worldly things that there will be ‘no room in the inn’ for Christ to be born again – John R. Brokhoff Monday 30th November If you want to know who God is, look at Jesus. St Andrew If you want to know what it means to be human, look at Jesus If you want to know what love is, look at Jesus. If you want to know what grief is, look at Jesus. And go on looking until you’re not just ba spectator, but you’re actually part of the drama which has him as the central character – N. T. Wright Tuesday 1st December Everything that is worthwhile must be waited for. (Carlo Carretto) Wednesday 2nd December Advent: the time to listen for footsteps. You can’t hear footsteps when you’re running yourself. (Bill McKibben) Thursday 3rd December At this Christmas when Christ comes, will He find a warm heart? Mark the season of Advent by loving and serving others with God’s own love and concern. (St. Mother Teresa) Friday 4th December. Advent is the time of promise; it is not yet the time of fulfillment. We are still in the midst of everything and in the logical inexorability and relentlessness of .…Space is still filled with the noise of destruction and annihilation, the shouts of self-assurance and arrogance, the weeping of despair and helplessness. But round about the horizon the eternal realities stand silent in their age-old longing. There shines on them already the first mild light of the radiant fulfillment to come. From afar sound the first notes as of pipes and voices, not yet discernable as a song or melody. It is all far off still, and only just announced and foretold. But it is happening, today.” ― Alfred Delp, Advent of the Heart: Seasonal Sermons And Prison Writings 1941-1944 Saturday 5th December One of the essential paradoxes of Advent: that while we wait for God, we are with God all along ,that while we need to be reassured of God’s arrival, or the arrival of our homecoming, we are already at . While we wait, we have to trust, to have faith, but it is God’s grace that gives us that faith. As with all spiritual knowledge, two things are true, and equally true, at once. The mind can’t grasp paradox; it is the knowledge of the soul.” ― Michelle Blake Sunday 6th December Advent proclaims our confidence that “God comes!” Carlo Advent 2 Carretto, a contemporary desert hermit, reflects on the verb tense of this phrase saying, It is not used in the past tense—God has come, nor in the future tense—God will come, but in the present tense—‘God comes.’ This is a continuous present, an ever-continuous action: it happened, it is happening now and it will happen again. At every moment, ‘God comes.’ It is a theological verb that proclaims one of God’s essential and qualifying features: that He is the “God-who-comes.” Monday 7th December The Lord is coming, always coming. When you have ears to hear and eyes to see, you will recognize him at any moment in your life Life is Advent; life is recognizing the coming of the Lord – Henri J. M. Nouwen Tuesday 8th December Advent is the season that can remind us God is working while we’re waiting and we’re really waiting with God. Wednesday 9th December Advent increases our hope, a hope which does not disappoint. The Lord never lets us down – Pope Francis Thursday 10th December Waiting is a period of learning. The longer we wait, the more we hear about him for whom we are waiting – henri J. M. Nouwen Friday 11th December Waiting is a hard discipline in this hurry culture. We want things to happen on our timetables and when they don't, we get upset, depressed, or angry. It is difficult to wait when our consumer culture brainwashes us daily into the ideal of instant gratification; anything that takes too long isn't worth getting. The season beckons us to an active kind of waiting that opens our hearts and paves the way for the wonder and peace of Christmas. Saturday 12th December The spiritual practice of patience is another virtue which goes against the grain of how we live most days. God, in our view, has a wonderful sense of humour. Since most of us haven't gotten the point of patience, we are given plenty of opportunities to practice it! This is an ideal time of the year to be more patient with our loved ones, those we work with, and the general public. In each instance, we can realize that there is no way to push the river or hasten the harvest. Little by little, we can attune ourselves to the slow work of God. Sunday 13th December Hope is an aspect of Advent that demands our attention and Advent 3 allegiance. It is a spiritual practice that is really needed as the days get shorter, the nights get longer, and the year comes to its conclusion. Hope is an orientation of the heart, a renewable energy source that comes from the grace of God. It provides a perfect antidote to the exhaustion and inertia that so many feel during the holidays. Hope counsels us that all is well and that we can make it through tough times and dark nights of the soul. Monday 14th December ‘There stands among you – unknown to you – the one who is coming’. ’s proclamation is sure and certain, filled with hope and, one must assume, wholly joyful. Can we also feel in the depths of our hearts such joy as we hear this news? Amidst the tumult of our everyday lives - the rush to find the right presents, get the cards away on time, and attend the obligatory functions – are we allowing ourselves to find the time to truly prepare and more dauntingly perhaps, truly proclaim, this wonderful news? That Christ is in us, each and every one, and that, in little over ten days, we will celebrate the most astonishing and fantastic event that is Christ’s birth here in our midst should truly fill us with such joy and peace. However, it can only do so if we allow ourselves the time to reflect, to pray and to prepare. Only then will we, like John the Baptist, be so moved by the Spirit that we will also wish to proclaim this blessed coming of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, in a world that greatly needs to hear His message. Tuesday 15th December “Here’s an Advent illustration for kids — and those of us who used to be kids and remember what it was like. Suppose you and your mom get separated in the grocery store, and you start to get scared and panic and don’t know which way to go, and you run to the end of an aisle, and just before you start to cry, you see a shadow on the floor at the end of the aisle that looks just like your mom. It makes you really happy and you feel hope. But which is better? The happiness of seeing the shadow, or having your mom step around the corner and it’s really her?

That’s the way it is when Jesus comes to be our High Priest. That’s what Christmas is. Christmas is the replacement of shadows with the real thing.” ― John Piper Wednesday 16th December He (God) became what we are that he might make us what he is – St Athanasius Thursday 17th December My idea of God is not a divine idea. It has to be shattered time after time. He shatters it Himself. He is the great iconoclast. Could we not almost say that this shattering is one of the marks of His presence. The is the supreme example; it leaves all previous ideas of the in ruins. And most are ‘offended’ by the iconoclasm, and blessed are those who are not. – C. S. Lewis Friday 18th December For outlandish creatures like us, on our way to a heart, a brain, and courage, is not the end of our journey, but only the beginning – not home, but the place through which we must pass of we are ever to reach home at last – Frederik Buechner. Saturday 19th December Let’s approach Christmas with an expectant hush, rather than a last minute rush Sunday 20th December Jesus came to us as a child so that we might come to Advent 4 understand not only that nothing we do is insignificant, but that every small thing we do has within it the power to change the world. (Joan Chittister, OSB) Monday 21st December You could more easily catch a hurricane in a shrimp net that you can understand the wild, relentless, passionate, uncompromising, pursuing love of God made present in the manger. (Brennan Manning) Tuesday 22nd December The message of the Incarnation is not to behold an innocent baby resplendent in inertia, but rather to take sides with a God who agitates for reform and shatters the status quo. (Doris Donnelly) Wednesday 23rd December Jesus isn’t the reason for the season. He’s the reason for every day of our lives. Thursday 24th December Each of us is an Innkeeper who decides if there is room for Christmas Jesus – Neal A. Maxwell

Karl Rahner the great Jesuit theologian wrote – on the night before Christmas he heard God whispering to us, ‘When you celebrate say to me, “You are here. You have come. You have come into everything that exists, into everything that we are”. Say only that one thing. That is enough

Friday 25th December Into this world, this demented inn in which there is absolutely Christmas Day no room for him at all, Christ comes uninvited. (Thomas Merton)

Perhaps the hardest thing to remember about Christmas is this: It celebrates the Incarnation, not just the Nativity. The Incarnation is an on-going process of salvation, while the Nativity is the once-and-for-all historical event… In the Incarnation, God entered our world so thoroughly that nothing has been the same since. (Liturgy Training Source Book)

Life is sometimes paradoxical. In the heart of our suffering, profound joy can be sometimes discerned and the voice of the Lord who says ‘I am with you’ can be heard. And the Incarnation is the great mystery that destroys all our categories and securities. Our gaze is sometimes too weak to see and understand him: whilst in the , God was presented as creating by separation, the new creation we celebrate today is a creation that put together things that are seemingly impossible to reconcile, God and Man. In a wonderful sermon on the Virgin Mother, Saint Bernard writes about this paradox and about the many wonders and prodigies of the Incarnation. In the Incarnation, he says, we can behold ‘ shortened, Immensity contracted, Sublimity leveled down, Profundity made shallow. We can contemplate the Light without splendor, the Word without speech, Water which is thirsty, and Bread that feels hunger. We see Omnipotence being ruled, Omniscience being instructed, Virtue supported, God feeding at the breast whilst he nourishes the angels.’ But what is not less astonishing, in the Incarnation of our Lord, we can discover ‘sadness giving joy, fear producing confidence, suffering a source of health, death communicating life, weakness imparting strength.’ In a sense, the mystery of the Incarnation turns upside-down all our categories. We can see the beauty in a dying person in a hospital, not as if pain and suffering could give any meaning to anything at all, but simply because within flaws and rifts, we can discern the feeble strength and the discrete presence of the One who walks with us. Grass sometimes grows on the sand ...

So, the wonderful mystery of the Incarnation we celebrate today invites us to discern the mysterious presence of God, not outside, but within our lives. And this might be difficult to do, because sometimes, we do not accept the tenderness of God. We do not want a God crying and suffering. We would like a God in front of whom we bow, with , sparkling chasubles, gleaming liturgical vessels, and elaborated liturgy … and not a God kneeling. But the Incarnation of our Lord shows us that a God who manifests himself clearly as God is not God but simply the King of the World. God is with us. God is within us.

At Bethlehem, He became God with us At , He became God for us At , He became God in us

Christmas isn’t just a temporal celebration or the memory of a beautiful event….Christmas is more…Christmas is an encounter! - Pope Francis Saturday 26th December The life of St. Stephen is entirely shaped by God, conformed to St Stephen Christ, whose passion is repeated in him; in the final moment of death, on his knees, he takes up the prayer of Jesus on the cross, trusting in the Lord (Acts 7:59) and his enemies: "Lord, do not hold this sin against them" (60). Filled with the Holy Spirit, as his eyes are about to close, he fixed his gaze on "Jesus standing at the right hand of God" (55), the Lord of all, who draws all to him. On St. Stephen’s Day, we are called to fix our gaze on the , who, in the joyful atmosphere of Christmas, we contemplate in the mystery of his incarnation. In and confirmation, with the precious gift of faith nourished by the sacraments of the Church, especially the Eucharist, Jesus Christ has bound us to him and wants to continue in us, through the action of the Holy Spirit, his work of salvation that redeems, enhances, elevates and leads all to fulfillment. Allowing ourselves be drawn by Christ, like St. Stephen, means opening our lives to the light that calls, directs and makes us walk the path of good, the path of humanity, according to God’s loving plan. Finally, St. Stephen is a model for all those who want to serve the New Evangelization. He shows that the novelty of proclamation does not primarily consist in the use of original methods or techniques, which certainly have their uses, but in being filled with the Holy Spirit and allowing ourselves to be guided by him. The novelty of proclamation lies in immersing ourselves deeply in the mystery of Christ, the assimilation of his word and of his presence in the Eucharist, so that he himself, the living Jesus, can act and speak through his envoy. In essence, the evangelizer becomes able to bring Christ to others effectively when he lives in Christ, when the newness of the manifests itself in his own life. We pray that the Church sees more men and women who, like St. Stephen, know how to give a convinced and courageous witness of the Lord Jesus. – Pope Benedict XV1 Sunday 27th December We celebrate the feast of St John, Apostle and Evangelist, in Christmas 1 the of Christmas. He is the first defender of the truth St John of the Incarnation. He testifies to what he has heard, what he has seen with his eyes, what he looked upon and touched with his hands he is a witness to the fact that God became one of us. This truth is so incredible that over the centuries many have tried to deny it. Why is this so? Perhaps the most important reason is that the Incarnation shows clearly the radical love that God has for us. This could be an uncomfortable fact for many, even for us today: love is always a relationship that requires at least two persons, it requires a wholehearted response.

Perhaps we ourselves are not always ready to accept and respond to love with love. Nothing could be easier and more difficult at the same time because of our fear of commitment. But loving God is no serfdom but liberation and deep in our hearts we all long for this Beauty, ‘ever ancient and ever new.’ Monday 28th December The Feast of the Holy Innocents is a powerful reminder of the The Holy Innocents great challenge the Incarnation presents to the world. Christ is the light of the world, a source of great hope and joy, but to people like Herod who prefer the powers of darkness, the Incarnation is a source of great fear. The Holy Innocents are witnesses to Christ's power to overcome darkness, a power that filled people like Herod with fear, but for those of us who believe, a power that fills us with hope and joy Tuesday 29th December Mary's Song

Blue homespun and the bend of my breast keep warm this small hot naked star fallen to my arms. (Rest... you who have had so far to come.) Now nearness satisfies the body of God sweetly. Quiet he lies whose vigor hurled a universe. He sleeps whose eyelids have not closed before. His breath (so slight it seems no breath at all) once ruffled the dark deeps to sprout a world. Charmed by doves' voices, the whisper of straw, he dreams, hearing no music from his other spheres. Breath, mouth, ears, eyes he is curtailed who overflowed all skies, all years. Older than eternity, now he is new. Now native to earth as I am, nailed to my poor planet, caught that I might be free, blind in my womb to know my darkness ended, brought to this birth for me to be new-born, and for him to see me mended I must seen him torn.” ― Luci Shaw, Accompanied by Angels: Poems of the Incarnation Wednesday 30th December We celebrate and rejoice at the Incarnation, at God's entrance into the world. We also celebrate God's entrance into our lives. Sometimes it can be easy to forget that our religion is not based on a series of abstract premises or ideas, it is based on a living person, Jesus Christ. We can be tempted to keep Christ at arm's length, perhaps because personal relationships are so demanding. We do not feel we have the time or energy to engage in a dialogue with Jesus. In times like these we may find it useful to meditate on the , stripped of all the sentimentality of so many of our Christmas Cribs: there we find a poor couple nursing their new born baby, who is God, in a barn - and they are full of joy. Thursday 31st December We tend to idealize the image of the in our Crib scenes, but the Holy family did not experience problems. Already before Joseph and Mary were together became pregnant and Joseph was in great confusion and wanted to divorce her quietly until he had a dream and the angel of the Lord invited him to take her in his house. When the child was about to be born, the family could not find a room in the entire village of Bethlehem. When Jesus was presented in the Temple, the prophet told Mary that her heart would be pierced by a sword. Later, when Herod heard that a child was born to become King, he tried to kill him and the family had to go to Egypt. When Jesus was twelve years old, the parents lost him in the Temple of . It is highly probable that Joseph’s business had some financial problems as it is the case for poor families in occupied territories where the conquered people have to pay taxes to the occupier.

The Incarnation tells us that God did not enter into fantasy world, but into this world, the teal world, with all its messiness, and that included within his own family. Friday 1st Jesus is not telling us to believe unbelievable things, as if that The Naming of Jesus would somehow please God. He is much more saying to us, “Try this,” and you will see for yourself that it is true. But that initial trying is always a leap of faith into some kind of action or practice.” ― Richard Rohr, Preparing for Christmas Saturday 2nd January At this time we celebrate Mary, Mother of God. How often we Christians use that title and with such ease. It slips of the tongue or greets us on the page so innocently and disarmingly. We use it so often, in the or at at , that we can simply overlook how profound and shocking a statement it is. Indeed, to some of other faiths it would simply be blasphemous to announce that God, the eternal and uncreated, could ever lower Himself to be born of, and cared for by, one of His creatures.

In the first few centuries of the life of the Church many Christians also found it a difficult statement to accept. Even if one accepts Mary as the mother of Jesus, isn't it a bit much to go around proclaiming a humble women to be the 'Mother of God'? Are we not in danger of proclaiming a creature the originator of the Godhead? This title, a western derivation of the Greek theotokos, or God-bearer, was first formerly adopted at the Council of Ephesus in 431. It was used here as a way to assert the divinity of Christ against those who would emphasise a disunity between Christ's human and divine natures. The Council sought to show that Jesus was both fully divine and fully human; one person, two natures; fully God and fully man. As such it follows that what can be predicated of Jesus Christ can be predicated of God also. So it was that this highest title of honour was formerly affirmed in the Church. The Church says; the one whom Mary bore is God, not that Mary is the of the Holy .

We should still be shocked by this wonderful title; not to the point of disbelief, scepticism or mistrust, but in the sense of being in awe of the statement. The title can tell us much about Mary and much about her Son. It should remind us of how powerful an event the Incarnation really is and what an example of all that is faithful and holy Mary is. The courageous and humble fiat that Mary proclaimed enabled the Incarnation to occur and she became unique as 'Mother of God'. No other human would or could be as close to God as Mary is to her Son; but in this closeness we are reminded that it is Mary that enabled the Word to take flesh that He might share in our humanity and we in His divinity. We too can share in that bond between Mother and Child; we can share in His divinity because He, through Mary, was clothed in our humanity.

Amidst the excitement and anticipation of the beginning of a New Year we should take time to ponder these truths and to ask how we, with the help of God's grace, might share a greater closeness in the mystery we proclaim and at which Mary is at the heart. Sunday 3rd January Finally, in the fullness of time, Christmas 2 within that human family, one unique and special human life appeared: whole complete free loving living being at one at peace at rest. In that life was seen with new intensity that primal power of the universe, Christpower. And it was good!

From ‘Christpower’ by Bishop John Shelby Spong Monday 4th January The Visited Planet

In 1957 J.B. Phillips, writer and Bible translator, wrote a short story entitled “The Visited Planet.” Phillips imagined a tour of the universe by two angels, one as old as creation, and the other newly formed amidst the host of heaven. The older angel showed off wonder upon wonder, the birthing fields of stars, nebulae thousands of light years across, distances and depths beyond imagining. At length, as the attention of the young angel began to flag, they entered a back lot of the Milky Way, the galaxy that includes our sun.

As the two of them drew close to our star, and its circling planets, the senior angel pointed to a small and rather insignificant sphere turning very slowly on its axis. It looked dull as a dirty tennis ball to the little angel whose mind was filled with the size and glory of all he had seen previously.

“I want you to watch that one particularly,” said the senior angel, pointing with his finger.

“Well, it looks very small and rather dirty to me,” said the little angel. “What’s special about that one?” “That,” replied the senior solemnly, “is the Visited Planet.”

“Visited?” said the little one. “You don’t mean visited by...”

“Indeed I do. That ball, which I have no doubt looks to you small and insignificant and perhaps not overclean, has been visited by our young Prince of Glory.” And at these words he bowed his head reverently.

“But how?” queried the younger one. “Do you mean that our great and glorious Prince, with all these wonders and splendors of His Creation, and millions more that I ‘m sure I haven’t seen yet, went down in Person to this fifth-rate little ball? Why should He do a thing like that?”

“It isn’t for us,” said his senior a little stiffly, “to question His ‘whys,’ except that I must point out to you that He is not impressed by size and numbers as you seem to be. But that He really went I know, and all of us in Heaven who know anything know that. As to why He became one of them...how else do you suppose He could visit them?”

The little angel’s face wrinkled in disgust.

“Do you mean to tell me,” he said, “that He stooped so low as to become one of those creeping, crawling creatures of that floating ball?”

“I do, and I don’t think He would like you to call them ‘creeping crawling creatures’ in that tone of voice. For, strange as it may seem to us, He loves them. He went down to visit them to lift them up to become like Him.

The little angel looked blank. Such a thought was almost beyond his comprehension.” Tuesday 5th January "Behold I Stand" by Gerard Kelly

When the night is deep With the sense of Christmas And expectancy hangs heavy On every breath, Behold I stand at the door and knock.

When the floor is knee deep In discarded wrapping paper And the new books are open at page one And the new toys are already broken, Behold, I stand at the door and knock.

When the family is squashed Elbow to elbow Around the table And the furious rush for food is over And the only word that can describe the feeling Is full, Behold, I stand at the door and knock.

And when Christmas is over And the television is silent For the first time in two days And who sent which card to whom Is forgotten until next year, Behold, I stand at the door.

And when the nation has finished celebrating Christmas without Christ A birthday Without a birth The coming of a kingdom Without a King And when I am Forgotten Despised Rejected Crucified—

Behold, I stand.

Wednesday 6th January What a difference! The three had only a rumour to go by. The Epiphany But it moved them to make that long journey. The scribes were much better informed, much better versed. They sat and studied the Scriptures like so many dons, but it did not make them move. Who had the more truth? The three Magi who followed a rumour or the scribes who remained sitting with all their knowledge? – Soren Kierkegaard

…All this was a long time ago, I remember, And I would do it again, but set down This set down This: were we led all that way for Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly, We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death, But had thought they were different; this Birth was Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death, We returned to our places, these Kingdoms, But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation, With an alien people clutching their gods. I should be glad of another death. - T. S. Eliot – from ‘Journey of the Magi’.